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Kiwanuka's title screen, with its beautiful geometric visual design and psychedelic soundtrack, sets the tone for the levels to follow. What isn’t immediately apparent is that this charming puzzler is built on a single, elegant gameplay mechanic that perhaps doesn't offer enough depth to support the weight of an entire game.
Cast in the role of a tiny wizard, you must use your magic to escort a host of followers across a series of 2D levels. Touching anywhere on the screen produ…

While there are a fair number of physics puzzlers on the App Store, few blend colour matching with magnetic mechanics. Developer Stewart Hogarth has done exactly this, however, with his new puzzler iON Bond.
The principles of iON Bond’s puzzles are remarkably simple. The goal of each level is to attract disks of the same colour together. In isolation, however, none of the disks have any locomotion of their own.
Luckily, the tiny circles can be positively or negatively charged. Their polarity allows you to pull them together or push them apart like magnets, enabling you to navigate your way around each puzzle.
Featuring 70 levels, and a secret game mode that unlocks…

We wonder what went through Rogue Play’s collective heads when they got the Godzilla licence. Given the leash of the world's most iconic building-mashing monster, we can’t work out at what point they felt that a match three puzzler would be the best fit. But while Godzilla - Smash3 may not offer the most apt use the king of lizards, it does offer some monstrous elements.
Controlling Godzilla, you must battle the military, smash buildings, and defeat other monsters. While y…

With the new Godzilla movie on the horizon, we were expecting a monster of a game to emerge from the ocean of the App Store. Not to disappoint, developer Rogue Play has unleashed Godzilla - Smash3, a free-to-play match-three puzzler.
Never ones to run from danger, we have thrown ourselves headlong into the game’s monstrous maw. Taking control of the massive reptile, we advanced on the worlds cities, wiping out all manner of military defences.
The top of the screen shows Godzilla’s path of destruction in full 3D, allowing us pick and choose our targets. You must control his attacks by matching coloured shapes on the grid beneath.
This match-three gameplay follows a similar st…

Third Eye Crime: Act 1 is a noir stealth puzzler that casts you as Rothko, a smooth talking criminal with the telepathic power to predict his enemies’ movements.
Giving you the ability to see the path of Rothko’s pursuers certainly gives the thief an edge in his career of choice. Played from a top-down perspective, the game lays the puzzle out before you as you try and guide the criminal through the world to his target. This eliminates some of the guess work usually associated with such stealth titles, while also removing the need to memorise your enemies search patterns.
Coming from Moonshot Games, a studio made up of former Bungie staff, Third Eye Crime is designed as a cinem…

The stunning Escher-inspired puzzler Monument Valley is to receive additional levels in the future, developer ustwo has promised.
Even though the game has only been out on iOS for a few weeks, ustwo’s Director of Games, Neil McFarland, is already considering the next content update.
During the development process, it seems that the team were careful to only keep what worked within the narrative, leading to some ideas being cut from the finished game.
Now, the London-based studio wants to revisit these concepts, and work them back into story.
The effort put into the original ten stages was clearly painstaking, so just how long it will take it to make these new levels remains to be…

Like many of the best teachers, Instantion doesn't tell you the answers. From the very beginning, the 2.5D action puzzler is quite happy to leave you struggling with challenges, in the expectation that you'll eventually suss them out for yourself. This fits neatly with the game's virtual wire-frame world, which gives you the sense you're running simulated experiments under laboratory conditions.
You have to hop your avatar over obstacles, and activate doors and bridges to get to…

CLARC is a block puzzler wrapped in the strangely sympathetic tale of a small repair droid trying to save the world and find love.
After an explosion takes out an entire block of the Martian colony he calls home, CLARC is charged with repairing the damage. Before long the little machine finds itself falling in love with a missile, and trying to save the planet from the invading forces of M.O.T.H.E.R.
To achieve all of these goals, CLARC has a single tool at his disposal: the ab…

Mixing Wacky Races with Angry Piggies, Minority Media’s vehicle constructing puzzler Loco Motors came screeching onto the App Store a couple of weeks back.
Your main objective in Loco Motors is simple: make it to the finish line. To do this, the construction puzzler has you build your own vehicle, which you must steer over jumps, lumps, and bumps.
Creating your automobile a simple task thanks to the games intuitive interface. You can draw, move, and erase the frame by selecting the relevant option from the bottom of the screen. Its a similar story for all of the other parts too, which can simply be dragged into your construction window before automatically rotating an…

Brain busting action-puzzler Dual Survivor is now live on the App Store.
This co-ordination challenging vertical-scrooler has guiding two ships through parallel mazes simultaneously. You take control of each craft with a thumb, and must trace the line you want your ships to take across the twin floating paths.
But like patting your head while rubbing your stomach, each simple task will fast become infuriating. Focus too much on navigate one ship past a jump or obstacle, and your other ship will be a pile of sci-fi rubble before you can say "I hate multitasking."
The architecture doesn't make things any easier. The paths your ships are zooming down are pulsing, colourful…

Lightomania is a brand-new physics-puzzler from a developer called Nravo.
In Lightomania, you're tasked with helping two fuzzy (and loveable) thieves who plan to make off with the world's supply of energy-rich light bulbs.
You do this across 54 varied stages. How? By pulling the tongues of your pilfering buddies and then launching them across your device's screen at their targets.
Naturally, you should attempt to complete each stage in as few moves as possible if you wish to get your mitts on any of Lightomania's many bonuses.
Although Lightomania was inspired by some of the App Store's most popular puzzle games, such as Angry Birds and Cut the Rope, Nravo have worked hard to ensure th…

As an iPhone or iPad gamer, you may look down on your friend with his Galaxy S2 or other Android device.
There are some reasons why you shouldn’t, though.
Although the App Store still rules when it comes to mobile gaming, there are SOME titles that actually landed on Android first.
Without further ado, then, let’s look at some of the best Android apps that were released ahead of their iOS counterparts.
Little known
One of the more noteworthy ones is Little Empire by Camel Games, which surfaced on Android weeks before it debuted on iOS devices.
A freemium tower defence title doesn't sound like anything special, sure, but thanks to the superb presentation and enjoyable combat…

At first sight, it’s clear PUK knows what it is. It’s stylish, minimalistic, and cool.
And with barely an introduction, players seem to instinctively know what PUK is, too.
For those of you who haven't played it yet, though, PUK can be described as a “retro-inspired, super-minimal, pure action-puzzler".
That’s the voice of Simon Renshaw from Laser Dog, the creators of PUK. We spoke to him about the ideas behind the game, and what Laser Dog are aiming to do with their first mobile game.
"Most games that I see these days (across all platforms) tend to be entertainment focused, designed to draw you in with prettiness and comfort rather than bite," Renshaw states.…

After the incredible success of Cut the Rope, developer Zeptolab undoubtedly spent more than a moment wondering just how they'd follow it up. As it turns out, they've branched out in a new direction - albeit one still featuring sugary treats and three-star rated puzzlers - and players will have to flick and stick blobs of pudding together to create the ultimate Pudding Monster.
In each stage the player is given a handful of puddings they can flick around the screen. As with similarly…